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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Where are we heading with this ?

It is rhetoric and common courtesy to say that education is a foundation for development and modernization of a country with shared knowledge and skills. Educational institutes are the birth place of innovation and where ideas and thought are redirected and shaped with the civilization that time itself gives. And when a civilized brain does not get the compatible and up to standards education a generation and a society will be lost.Some of the things that are happening does not seem to show a silver lining around the shining sun of the future of our Ethiopia’s educational system. Here I have listed short but true incidents.

Teachers: Gibson, a private school owned by an American-Somalia, lets its full time teachers give after class tutorials at a fixed wage which the teachers found it to be low to pertain with the present cost of living but the request they presented for a raise was not addressed which forced them to strike against the negligence. The non-citizen director called in the parent of every student in the school and gave a direct order that any student that is found in the compound to attend any after class tutorial will be expelled from the school for good. The parents agreed to comply with this new school rule out of free of not being able to find another school for their children if they are expelled. The stifled teachers were made to write a pardon letter to the director in both languages. ባለአገረኛውእኮማንእንደሆነእንጃ.

Students: My friend’s uncle is a 10th grade math teacher in Nekemet. We asked him how his students are doing ,his response was “I have stopped teaching math years ago now I teach my students to write their names that is the only way I can describe what I do right now if you understand what I mean. They did not get the proper knowledge and acquired the fundamental base at their lower grades for a 10th grade math”

Professionals: A friend of mine is a chief Engineer for the company he works for and does random interviews with new hires. The company’s accounting department had a head count open and was interviewing. One of the candidates was sent for high-level interview to this friend of mine. He asked various random questions of which one was extremely elementary that he had to apologize before hand in fear of offending the candidate. The question was to write numbers in english from one to thirty-five at gaps of three numbers which the candidate failed to do so. Yet the candidate was an accounting graduate from a government institute.

Educational System: The academic displines, Law and Pedagogy, are now only provided in government institutes in concern with the quality and standard offered in private colleges. The other change in the educational system is the new 70/30 rule which pacts with the number students that are being admitted in the two streams of study Social science and Science and technology. According to this rule, from the overall number of students that pass the ESLCE exam 70% will be assigned in Science and technology departments and 30% in Social Science departments. These new rules significantly reduce the number of Economists, law makers and thinkers.